The Heavens Declare ...

It is now 4:02 a.m. and I’ve been up for an hour outside looking for more shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower. Unfortunately, an overcast of haze clouds Jacksonville’s sky and not a star is to be seen.

I’m tempted to wake Ginny and drive to the beach to watch the sky and the sunrise. I mentioned the prospect to her yesterday and she greeted the idea with less than enthusiasm.

When the kids were little, we used to wake them in the small hours and walk them to a park near our house to see meteor showers, comets, eclipses, things of that sort. We’d all lay out in the grass on blankets and eat cinnamon buns, drink hot chocolate and watch the sky.

I’d try to tell them about how "the heavens declare the Glory of God", etc.; they were more interested in the cinnamon buns.

One night when they were teens, I drug them all out for a walk down to the dock on the Ribault River to watch an eclipse of the moon. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as they complained about having to be out at that ungodly hour. And clouds covered the sky so that nothing was visible.

They bitched and whined and said uncomplimentary things about the wisdom of a father who’d subject them to such horrible treatment – forcing them out to see a moon that wasn’t there to be seen.

So, I made them all cluster at the end of the dock while I walked to the shore end. I told them to all observe closely....

Then I unfastened my belt buckle, dropped my pants and mooned them.

They chased me home howling with laughter.

That was one scientific outing they still talk about.